Yellowstone Supervolcano Could Explode Sooner Than Expected (Which Still Isn't That Soon)

If you're somebody who enjoys living, you may have been disappointed by some news making the rounds on Thursday that seemed to imply a supervolcano sitting beneath Yellowstone National Park could erupt sometime soon, taking out all life on Earth when it does.

The early evidence, presented at a recent volcanology conference, shows that Yellowstone’s most recent supereruption was sparked when new magma moved into the system only decades before the eruption. Previous estimates assumed that the geological process that led to the event took millenniums to occur.

Furthermore, as National Geographic points out, the last of three major eruptions over the course of 2 million years occurred roughly 630,000 years ago and, when it did, it created a 40 mile wide crater (the Yellowstone caldera) that makes up most of the park. The supervolcano at Yellowstone is capable of unleashing an eruption about 2,500 times as powerful as Mt. St. Helens' 1980 eruption, which killed 57 people. That would mean a burst that could cover most of the U.S. in ash and potentially plunge the planet into volcanic winter. Additionally, the previous eruption (meaning before the one that happened 630,000 years ago) happened in a similar timeframe, as it shot its wad about 1.3 million years ago.

So give or take 40,000 years.

This got people buzzing that an extinction level event could be impending because science is frequently boring since it's not sensationalistic (that NYT article, which was very informative and well written, put my ass to sleep). However, as noted by Esquire, a massive volcanic discharge is not impending. In fact, the story is relevant because scientists are now realizing how quickly factors for a supereruption can come together.

"It’s shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption," said Hannah Shamloo, an ASU grad student who spent weeks at the Yellowstone site. Previously, as the excerpt above mentions, scientists thought supereruptions would exhibit signs over the course of thousands of years. Now they believe it could happen in a human lifetime. The next eruption is probably coming soon relative to the pace that Earth's geology works at, but that is slow AF in terms of human lifespan. Don't panic over hyperbole.

Additionally, Michael Poland, the scientist who runs Yellowstone's Volcano Observatory said "We haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe that the sort of magmatic event described by the researchers is happening." Sounds like your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids' problem.

Show Video Transcript

Transcript

What's up, guys? Beija here for Complex News.

We learned a bit more this week about the likelihood of a Busta Rhymes album coming to life.

Researchers from Arizona State University studied a supervolcano that sits beneath Yellowstone National Park, and their findings were surprising and at least a little bit alarming.

The supervolcano, if it should erupt, is powerful enough to blanket the entire country in ash, and possibly even, in the chilling words of a New York Times article about the situation, "plunge the earth into a volcanic winter." The last time the supervolcano erupted was about 631,000 years ago.

What the Arizona State researchers found out is not when it will erupt again, but how much time we'll have to figure out that it's happening. They analyzed some materials in fossilized ash, and figured out that previous consensus was wrong.

People used to think that the supervolcano would give us thousands of years of warning before it went off—that there would be recognizable changes for literally millennia leading up to the big bang. But the researchers found that the most recent eruption happened when new magma came in only decades before things popped off. So, basically, we would have as little as the span of one human lifetime between the first indication that things were going to go down, and seeing a real-life version of that Tommy Lee Jones and Don Cheadle movie no one remembers.

But before you start running off to your panic rooms, calm down. While no one can say exactly when the Yellowstone volcano's top is going to blow, most estimates have it as centuries away.

Michael Poland, the current Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory for the U.S. Geological Survey, reassured the readers of National Geographic.

"We see interesting things all the time ... but we haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe that the sort of magmatic event described by the researchers is happening."

But if you want something else to keep you up at night, think about this: the supervolcano at Yellowstone is not the only one on the planet. According to the BBC, there are about 20, and an eruption happens about every 100,000 years.

For all the latest on when we can expect everything to go kaboom, subscribe to Complex on YouTube.

For Complex News, I'm Beija and coming November 4th and 5th is the Second Annual Complex Con, where we bring all things Complex to life. Catch live performances, score some exclusive fits, take in informative panels and crush some delicious grub. Cop your tickets over at Complexcon.com/tickets now.

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